Originally published at parlando. Please leave any comments there.

Abba: The vowels in their name stood for vowels in the group members’ names as well.

The Velvet Underground: Introduced zeugma into rock lyrics.

The Monkees: I think the “y” in monkey is voiced like a consonant, don’t you? Yuh. Monkey-yuh. Right? So they picked up a vowel here.

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Originally published at parlando. Please leave any comments there.

Velma told me today that my name had come up at my old online home, The Well, when discussing XTC - it was opined that Scraps would doubtless have a list of top 50 XTC songs. And so, of course, I do.

Top Fifty XTC songs:

1. Earn Enough for Us
2. Great Fire
3. Making Plans for Nigel
4. 1000 ( Read more... )

Originally published at parlando. Please leave any comments there.

I borrowed a few 1999 albums from the library to try to fill some of the many listening gaps in my 1999 top fifty list. A few quick notes:*

Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides is probably one of the twenty best hip-hop albums I have ever heard.** It may end up in my 1999 top ten. It’s ( Read more... )

Originally published at parlando. Please leave any comments there.

I am slowly compiling a list of my favorite 999 albums from 1951 to the present, playing by the same rules as the 99 albums list (no best-of compilations, etc). I’m doing this a year at a time. This is the second shortlist: my 1999 top fifty (the first twenty to twenty-five will ( Read more... )

Originally published at parlando. Please leave any comments there.

I am slowly, in my copious free time, compiling a list of my favorite 999 albums from 1951 to the present, playing by the same rules as the 99 albums list (no best-of compilations, etc). I’m doing this a year at a time. This is my 1989 top forty (the first twenty to twenty-five ( Read more... )

Originally published at parlando. Please leave any comments there.

The Wombat File is asking for everyone’s worst song couplets of all time. Help out this worthy cause.

I would also like to collect here rhymes that are forbidden until further notice. At the top of my list is “use/abuse”. Any word where you have a good shot at guessing the rhyme ( Read more... )

Originally published at parlando. Please leave any comments there.

Top five incomprehensible animated characters:

5 - generic Peanuts parent*
4 - Kenny
3 - Boomhauer
2 - Mushmouth
1 - Donald Duck

*perhaps not strictly qualifying as animated, since never visible

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I’ve been going through some old mix tapes. In a way mix tapes were more fun than mix cds, in the same way that vinyl record programming could be more rewarding: you can fool around with the sides. You also had four primary positions available - the first and last songs on each ( Read more... )

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Top five songs about waiting:

5 Pere Ubu, “I Will Wait”
4 Pretenders, “The Wait”
3 Velvet Underground, “Waiting for My Man”
2 Ed’s Redeeming Qualities, “I Will Wait”
1 Matthew Sweet, “I’ve Been Waiting”

Top five songs about waitressing:

5 Tori Amos, “Waitress”
4 ( Read more... )

Originally published at parlando. Please leave any comments there.

Phil Ford at Dial M for Musicology issued an Ipod Random Challenge a while back that has resulted in several interesting posts. The lists are supposed to be annotated. I’m going to stick to one observation per song, which may have very little to do with the actual song. A few of ( Read more... )